Kiss in the Dark
by DJRabidPunk
Summary: All they had together was a moment of peace in the dark, before life settles over the kisses they shared. T rating for swears.
1. Cigarettes Burn

_**Kiss in the Dark**_

**Cigarettes Burn**

The Quidditch pitch is abandoned at this time of night, the stars above the only witness as Harry's wand meets the tip of the cigarette and ignites. He lay back on the cool grass, head aching from stress and lungs full as he inhales sweet smoke.

"Your girlfriend know you smoke, Potter?" A voice catcalls, and he startles slightly. Strutting slowly across the field, robes disheveled and too pale under the moon, is Draco Malfoy. His posture, though, speaks of lazy resignation as Harry trains his wand on him. He only gives the wand only a cursory look, seemingly uncaring that Harry might jinx him at any moment.

"Does yours?" Harry bites back. A slim cigarette dangles from Malfoy's lips, cherry glow bobbing in the darkness as he sits heavily in the dewy grass, as natural as if they were old friends. Harry frowns at his closeness, the ease with which he reclines and then the bastard _closes his eyes and smiles_. Harry reluctantly puts his wand away, though he doesn't let his hand stray far from his pocket.

"Don't have one, at the moment." A breeze lifts Harry's hair and blows out Malfoy's cigarette. He frowns and opens his eyes to look up at Harry. His eyes are positively luminous in the dimness of the moonlight, a fact that startles Harry.

"Gimme a light?" Draco grumbles, shifting up onto his elbows. He leans much too close, holding his cigarette to the end of Harry's in a kiss of embers. Harry's stomach flutters weakly as Malfoy takes a drag, letting the smoke out and then sucking it back in through his nose. Harry lets his own cigarette burn in the darkness, tendrils of smoke drifting up to join the stars.

Harry is tense as he turns his eyes up to watch the smoke drift away.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" A long pause.

"Nothing much. Just…talk. Share a smoke. Then you can go back to ignoring me, and I'll do the same for you." A harsh sigh, and Malfoy lets smoke furl out of his nose. The resulting cloud reminds Harry uneasily of dragons. He pulls his legs close, trying to retain what heat he's steadily losing. He should've cast a warming spell, but he can't bring himself to move. He wonders briefly if Malfoy has cast a spell to lull him into a false sense of security, but it doesn't seem so important on such a night.

"Alright, so talk." Malfoy chuckles and flicks ashes at him. Harry brushes them off in peevish irritation. The next drag he takes is too brief, the temporary balm of nicotine quickly losing it's edge. He can't take too much or Ginny will smell it on him in the morning. For some reason, thinking of her now makes him grit his teeth.

Another breeze blows through, pushing against Harry's back and again blowing out Malfoy's cigarette. He curses and sits up fully. Harry notices, in this instant, that Draco's usual grace has gone. He fumbles in the pockets of his robes, the half-dead cigarette clinging feebly to the edge of his lips. He is skinnier, and his eyes dart over the dark field with a hint of paranoia.

The war has changed him deeply. Instead of an arrogant, spoiled bully, Harry sees a man who has his moments of weakness and fallacy, and hopes that others won't notice these things. Draco is clinging, as desperate as his cigarette, to his feared name and reputation, but the incentive isn't there anymore. Harry has noticed, and the changes aren't necessarily good, but they are better. Now, Draco is better. Now, he seems more human.

This time Draco doesn't ask. He leans close, his shoulder bumping Harry's as he cups a hand around their cigarettes. The warmth of Draco seeps slowly into his skin as again, the cigarettes kiss and give light and life to each other. Then Draco leans back and looks at him for a long moment.

"I did terrible things, Harry. I won't say sorry for them, because they kept me and my family alive. But they keep me up at night. I see faces, in my dreams. But I wish I could've been braver, or even weaker. Then I would've died, and maybe things wouldn't have turn out like they have. Maybe so many people wouldn't have died. Maybe Dumbledore would still be alive." His voice breaks, and Draco looks away. Harry sighs and takes a deep, hollow drag, willing to face Ginny for the slight peace it give him.

Once he would've punched Malfoy in the face for mentioning Dumbledore like this. Now he's simply tired.

"Even if you died, Snape would've killed him. It was his job. Your death would've been just another casualty. Instead, you survived. That's more than most can say." Draco stares at him blankly, his silver eyes going flat. Then he laughs, a rough bark that reminds him achingly of Sirius.

"You're shit at cheering people up, you know that?" He shakes his head and sighs around his cigarette. It's nearly gone now, as is Harry's. The cold is suddenly bone-deep and enthralling, and that thought throws Harry for a moment or two.

"It's cold out. We should head back." Draco hums in agreement. Neither of them move. Draco points up at the sky suddenly, his smile soft.

"That star, that's Sirius. I always look for it, this time of year." A warmth grows steadily in Harry's stomach as he stares at the winking brightness. He remembers how Sirius once stared at these stars with him, for a moment believing himself a free man. He sighs and wearily climbs to his feet. Malfoy follows him, and they climb their way leisurely, side by side, up to the castle again. Their smoke mingles together when they reach the front steps. Malfoy takes one last, burning drag before tossing the filter to the stone and cruelly grinding it out with his shoe. Like Malfoy said, they will never talk to each other again after this. A feeling like mourning grief wells up, and Harry is suddenly reluctant to go inside and break this temporary truce.

"We…we could've been friends once, right Draco? We could be now, if we tried, right?" Malfoy's smile is indulging as he plucks the spent cigarette from Harry's lips and stomps it out. Harry flinches, staring at the corpses of their cigarettes laying, crushed, next to each other on the stone.

"No, Potter, we couldn't. Goodnight." He turns and walks away, hands in his pockets as he head down the stairs to the dungeons. Harry bites his lip, glances at the dead cigarettes, then calls out,

"Goodnight, Malfoy!" A laugh rings out, echoing out against the stone until Hogwarts swallows the sound and Harry is alone.

Uneasy and tired, Harry retreats upstairs to sleep.

Over the next nineteen years, and more, Ginny cannot get him to stop smoking.

AN: Okay, so is it clear? They don't really kiss. This is almost pre-slash, except for that last line. The cigarette's are symbolic for the relationship that could've been, but isn't. Basically, IMMA TEASE XD. Also, I hope y'all notice how they keep changing what they call each other. As they become more comfortable around each other, they switch to first names, and in the end they use last names to show that things will go back to how they were before. Just pointin' stuff out :P.


	2. Canaries Sing

**_Kiss in the Dark_**

**Canaries Sing, **

**Or,**

**Absolution**

Harry woke to the sounds of soft sobs and a songbird chirping.

It was an overcast day in mid-November, a little after two o'clock. Ginny had taken the children over to Molly's, and Harry was working on catching up on some much needed sleep.

But then the sobs woke him up. He sat up slowly, his unconscious mind telling him that Lily had woken up again. As he fumbled for his glasses, there was a soft gasp, and the songbird chirped again. He paused, now fully awake. He carefully put his glasses on, sliding to the side of the bed to peer around the hangings.

Draco Malfoy was sitting on his windowsill, curled around one knee with his hand pressed against his mouth as he struggled not to let himself be heard. On the sill next to him sat a canary, peering up at them both with black eyes.

Harry stared. Draco stared back at him with broken, bleeding-heart eyes.

"You're a wanted man, Malfoy." A brief nod as Draco dried his eyes on his sleeve. He looked a mess.

"You've been convicted of killing no less than eight people, two of them Muggles." Harry half-expected some sarcastic retort, for Draco to put on his mask of pride again, like he'd done so many years ago. Neither of those things happened.

Draco turned to look out the window.

"I killed fourteen people, Harry. God," he pressed his fingers to his mouth again, "I've wanted to do that for so long. Say your name, I mean. Harry James Potter." Draco managed a small, nervous smile. That smile and those desperate eyes made him so beautiful.

"Why are you here? How did you even-"

"I'm not really here, Harry."

"…then how am I seeing you?" A nervous fidget as Draco bit his lip. The sun suddenly broke through the clouds, making Harry squint in the brilliant light. Shouldn't Draco's body have blocked that? There was a certain…unreality to the situation that made Harry get to his feet. Draco rose, too, eyes panicked. They canary twittered, hopping on the sill.

"Harry reached out, but Draco shrank back.

"Don't. Please." Slowly, Harry withdrew.

Draco bit his lip.

Harry waited.

The bird chirped. Draco glanced at it and nodded, as if it had prompted him to speak.

"I jumped off a bridge into the Thames yesterday afternoon. This, me, standing here? It's just a spell. I'm dead, Harry."

The bird chirped.

"You killed yourself?" Barely a question, really. The guilt and shame were written on his face. Grief welled up, slowly but surely. It was so familiar. Too familiar.

"God." It was all he could say.

The bird chirped.

"Why?" Draco fidgeted again, and turned to look outside. This time Harry saw it; the sun passed straight through him, like a ghost. Harry swallowed heavily and the bird leapt into Draco's outstretched hand. He caged it with long, gently fingers, pet it's yellow feathers like it was a precious thing.

"I always envied birds. Even when they're captive, they can get a taste at freedom when they fly. They never…lose themselves, as long as they can fly. I lost myself, Harry. In my father's expectations. In the Dark Lord's command. And now in the nightmares and the running. I'm so tired, Harry. I just wanted to be able to sleep."

The bird chirped.

Draco smiled tentatively at him even though he'd started crying again.

"There are some things, though, that I regret. Can you guess what they are?"

Harry put his hand to his forehead. He was still numb from the grief that wouldn't leave him alone. A shaky laugh escaped him.

"No, I've no idea. What?" Draco's smile widened, and he stepped closer like he was going to tell Harry a secret.

"I regret not telling you yes, all those years ago, when you asked if we could try and be friends. I regret not spending every possible second I could around you, and I regret getting myself mixed up with Death Eaters again." He was in front of where Harry sat on his bed, and he sank to his knees. He gently covered one of Harry's hands with one of his own, the other still cradling the bird. Draco's touch was so cold, so deathly cold.

"And most of all, I regret not telling you from the bloody beginning that I love you." He tilted his chin up and brushed his lips to Harry's, soft like yellow feathers. He hadn't realized they were so close until the feeling of plunging into icy water came over him, an invisible current tugging at his body. An image sprang to his mind of Draco's body washed up on the shore of the river. His eyes were glass-dead, hair darkened by water clinging to his face. His lips were blue from the cold. Harry broke away from Draco with a cry, horror and anguish all in one noise. Draco smiled grimly, and retreated back to the window. Harry choked down his grief and despair so he could hear Draco's next words.

"Your wife and children are lovely. Your daughter especially. She has-"

"My eyes. My mother's eyes."

The bird chirped. Draco smiled at it, the sight bringing a brief flutter of joy even as it was swallowed by grief.

"There's a cigarette case that will arrive tonight by owl. It's a Portkey that will take you to my body, and you can trace the key in my pocket back to my hideout. Any evidence you might need and all that. And Harry?"

Harry looked up from his hands.

"Tell my mother I'm sorry, and that I love her." He pressed his lips to the canary's head, then opened his hands. As the bird took flight in a flutter of yellow, Draco evaporates into the sunshine that streamws through the window.

The room was unchanged.

Harry was not.

AN: Well. I hadn't expected to make a sequel, but I did. Damn plot bunnies. But that imagery of Draco with the two birds in the sixth movie will not leave me alone. And Harry and Draco got their kiss! Although, ANGST, DRACO, SO MUCH ANGST. Also, I don't know if it's saved right, but there should be a bunch of spaces between some lines. Your monitor is not malfunctioning, though mine might be. Xd Reviews would be lovely.


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